In Their Footsteps
by JuneLuxray2
Summary: After accidentally interacting with an elven artifact, Sera and Vivienne find their bodies swapped for three days, until it can be reversed. Having to manage walking in each other's shoes, they're in for more trouble than they could expect.
1. Chapter 1

Veilfire flickered and illuminated the walls as the party of the Inquisitor, Sera, Vivienne, and Cassandra stepped carefully through the ruin. The Inquisitor's hand flickered a green in the dark, while her other hand carried the torch, leading them.

Scouts had found the strange elven ruin just a few miles to the east of Skyhold, and upon duly reporting it, Inquisitor Dawn Trevelyan couldn't wait to investigate. The party was gathered and made their way. A veilfire torch made itself useful in the pitch black; none of the party could see a thing, save for Sera, who possessed the eyes of an elf to see in the dark.

Dully, she glanced around the room absentmindedly as their leader searched the walls for runes, squinting at the walls. Vivienne and Cassandra warily kept a lookout, though outside of the torch's effects, the they were blind as bats in the darkness. Eventually, Vivienne let out a huff and raised her staff. With a flash, the room was illuminated by magical white light. The others shielder their eyes at the sudden light, then began adjusting by repeatedly blinking.

The room was open, wall crumbling stone, with various elvhen barrels littered against the wall. An elven artifact was against the back, ready to be activated to strengthen the Veil. At the other far side was a strange orb that did was remarkably intact, looking as though it was made with pure obsidian. It was shiny in the light. The Inquisitor stopped her search for runes and approached the orb, cocking her head to the side.

"What's this?" she asked aloud. "I've never seen an elven artifact like this one. Looks more like a decorative garden piece you'd buy in Val Royeaux."

Vivienne maintained a distance from it, giving it a distasteful glare. "Inquisitor, do you feel the magical energy emanating from it? It's far more than just something that looks like an expensive garden decoration."

"Well, don't touch it." Sera snapped. "It's giving me the creeps. Thing's not right."

The Inquisitor rolled her eyes. "You say that about pretty much every magical artifact of every kind we happen to run across." she pointed out. Sera shrugged.

"That's because they're all creepy. Don't go poking."

"Be wary, Inquisitor," Cassandra warned, "if you want to bring it back to Skyhold to study, we should have specialists come back here to remove it safely. I don't know what will happen if any of us were to touch it."

Dawn nodded. "Agreed. I'll go to the war table once we get back and send out our agents to retrieve it. Until our mages deem it safe, let's not touch it." She glanced around. "I'd like to take another look around for possible runes on the wall with the veilfire. Vivienne, would you mind activating the other artifact to strengthen the veil, please? Maker knows Solas will not be happy if we leave without doing that. Cassandra, can you look in the barrels for anything of interest? Sera, you can look around or stand here to keep an eye on the orb."

Vivienne turned on her heel to go to it while Dawn went to the other wall with her torch, investigating the walls. She grinned when the sound of magic warbled at the sight of a green rune on the wall. Pulling out a paper from her pack and charcoal, she began to trace the symbols. Cassandra was back at the other wall, peeking into elvhen barrels, occasionally putting items of interest in a small bag at her side.

Sera boredly paced back and forth by the artifact, impatiently waiting for the others to get done so they could leave the ruins of elfy bullshit. It was old, elfy, full of magic; all things Sera didn't want to think about or be around.

"I'll be done in a minute," Dawn reassured without looking up from her tracing, "just a moment longer, Sera."

Sera huffed. The artifact Vivienne was working on came to life with a green field around it, flickering and working. Vivienne smiled. "Do take your time, my dear. We are in no rush."

"Ugh! You aren't, I am." Sera protested. The court enchanter scoffed.

"My dear, you should consider shutting your mouth. It's important to take our time and look for anything that could help in our fight against Corypheus."

"Why would anything in here, a ruddy old temple, have anything that we haven't already found ten times over in the other places we had to go through?" Sera growled impatiently, pacing speeding up. Vivienne was about to open her mouth to retort when she spied an open crack that one could slip on if they ran in the old floor. Sera's pacing picking up could lead her to trip on it.

"Sera, watch your step, there's-"

Sera's foot caught in the hole, and she stumbled, about to crash into the floor. Her arms swung around, flapping, trying to regain her balance. "Eek!" she cried, and unintentionally her hand smacked into the orb in her attempt to stay upright. A bolt of pain shot through her as her hand stuck to the orb. Sera let out a gasp, panicking, desperately trying to pull her hand off of the orb as she fell to her knees. "Help!" she yelped, "I'm stuck!"

The other women dropped what they were doing, rushing to Sera's aid. Vivienne reached her first, and the moment she laid hands on the rogue to pull her off, the same electric bolt of pain hit her. Vivienne gasped, suddenly feeling as though she was not in her own body, detached from it. Sera cried out as the same sensation hit her, dazed. It lasted only a moment before both women went limp, crashing to the floor like ragdolls, vision fading to black.

Dawn was second to get to their sides. Without thinking, she put a hand on Vivienne briefly before recoiling, for fear the same would happen to her, wide eyed. She breathed a sigh of very brief relief when she remained conscious, unaffected. Cassandra knelt down with her over them. Dawn put her hands back on them, checking for vital signs and pulses. Both were warm, breathing, and their pulses intact, albeit low.

"They're alright," Dawn judged, "just unconscious."

"What happened to them?" Cassandra asked, turning Sera over, who had fallen on her face. Dawn shook her head.

"I don't know. I've never encountered this magic before. I can't feel any magic coming from the orb any longer; I think they absorbed what was in it." She stood up and approached the artifact, reaching a finger towards it.

"Don't!" Cassandra yelled, wide-eyed. Dawn ignored her and touched it briefly.

"It's cold." she announced. "We should take them and it back and see what effects it's had on them. If anything bad happened, maybe we can find out how and reverse it."

Cassandra groaned. "I would have appreciated it if you didn't risk touching it. Maker only knows what it did to them; I don't want you risking it happening to you."

"I'm fine. Worse things can happen." the Inquisitor replied ever-so-calmly, gingerly picking up the artifact and placing it gently within her rucksack at her side with her tracing of the rune. Cassandra gave a disgusted groan and picked up Vivienne carefully. Dawn turned around and moved to pick up Sera. She was suddenly grateful that she had become a Knight-Enchanter; the exercise had made her strong enough to pick up and carry the elf.

The Lady Seeker and Inquisitor moved out of the ruins quickly, rushing to their horses outside to return to Skyhold as fast as they could. All the while they prayed nothing terrible had afflicted their companions, and that whatever effects that the artifact wrought could be reversed by Solas or Dagna.


	2. Chapter 2

The unconscious women were brought to Solas's room, while Dagna inspected the orb that had caused this. Solas was tending to Sera and Vivienne, with some assistance from Cassandra briefly before he had turned away for a moment to translate the rune the Inquisitor found, translating on another paper the common tongue. His eyes widened very slightly as he read it over, mumbling elven to himself. Each of the unconscious were laid down on couches (one of which had to be brought in) next to each other.

Cassandra continued to keep a watch over them, pacing back and forth as she did, arms crossed. Dagna was holding the orb, squinting at the surface of it, trailing a finger across. She could feel tiny etches in a language she could not read in its surface. Solas soon turned away from his work to take it from her, inspecting its surface. He gave it back to her.

"The magic in this was spent when they interacted with it," he said, "it is slowly recharging its magical energies. It should take about three days to fully recharge; we should have it stored safely until then."

"Did you manage to translate the rune?" Dagna asked. "I didn't get to have a peek at it yet."

Solas sighed. "It is not a rune at all, but instead an inscription with information regarding that object. The Inquisitor should be here. She needs to hear what it said...excellent timing, Inquisitor." he turned as Dawn walked into the room, frowning, eyebrows furrowed.

"Have you got news?"

"Some." Solas affirmed, hands behind his back. "That rune was not truly a rune, but a message, perhaps regarding that orb. It said 'to understand, you must walk in their footsteps.' That is all it had to say."

"That tells us nothing." Cassandra argued. "It's too vague. What does that even mean?"

Solas turned to the women on the couches quietly. "We shall see."

Vivienne was first to stir, and she groaned as she tried to rouse herself. Her head was pounding, and she winced, pulling a hand to her head to cast a minor ice spell to soothe the pain. She stopped short at the feeling of hair that did not belong to her; coarser and longer than her very short, close-cut scalp.

She tugged very gingerly at it, and winced at the uncomfortable feeling of hair being pulled. Heart dropping and gut wrenching, she tried to cast the ice spell. No magic sprung from her fingertips, and she couldn't feel the magic within her. She jumped into an upright sitting position, opening her eyes to find Cassandra, the Inquisitor, Solas, and Dagna staring at her silently.

"Are you alright, Sera? How do you feel?" Trevelyan asked softly.

"Sera?" Vivienne asked, "Oh..." She looked down at herself to find a slightly tattered red dress with plaidweave tights upon skin much paler than her own. Plucking a hair out and pulling it into her vision, a blonde strand with split ends was revealed. Doing her best to show no alarm, Vivienne stoically looked back up to the others. "Can you bring me a mirror, please?"

Solas pulled hand mirror off of his desk and handed it to her. Vivienne grasped it and held it before her face, revealing the wrong one; pointed ears, blonde hair, gray eyes, all belonging to an elven face, not her real one. Doing her best to compose herself, Vivienne returned to the mirror to Solas and looked around, stopping at the sight of her own body in an adjacent couch, still not awake.

Continuing to bite back any sign of the terror in her gut, holding back a look of horror she wanted to make, she looked squarely at the Inquisitor. "Inquisitor, darling, I think I know what that orb did to us."

The others gasped. Dawn recoiled while Cassandra covered her mouth with gloved hands, eyebrows practically ready to fly off her face from how high they rose on her forehead. Vivienne sighed. "You can tell."

"You're talking exactly like Vivienne," Solas replied, rather calmly, "the real Sera would never call anyone darling like you do. I translate the rune the Inquisitor found. It said 'to understand, you must walk in their footsteps.' I believe the meaning is now evident."

Dagna cleared her throat. "On the bright side, the orb is slowly recharging its magic, so you should be able to use it to switch back with Sera in about..." She hesitated. "...three days."

Vivienne let out the most exasperated sigh she had ever made. "Three days. This is just wonderful. Sera's doing to be in my body, saying and doing horrible things. I fear for myself." She paused as she watched Sera- well, Sera in her body, begin to stir.

Sera's head was also pounding, and groaned loudly at the sensation. "Oww. My head. Hurts. Like a bitch." She also moved a hand to rub her head, though she froze when she didn't feel her hair. "Where'd my hair go?" Sera sat up, blinking her eyes open. She screeched and fell off of the couch at the sight of her own body staring with an exasperated expression at her from the other couch.

Stuttering, she glared at Vivienne. "You a demon here to fuck with me? You're a fakey! I'm Sera! Not you!" She looked around and found the others staring. She pouted. "Inquisitor, why aren't you doing anything?! Use your mark or something! Get rid of her!"

"Sera," Vivienne stated coldly, "slow down and take a good look at yourself. I am no demon, though I'd rather contend with one of those than this mess."

Sera growled. "Why are you talking like Vivvy? Why does my voice sound like Vivvy? Am I in the Fade? What..." She looked down and jumped out of her skin to find Vivienne's expensive fashion on her. The power of magic tingled in her veins as she held a hand up to see her skin darker than what it should be.

She began to whimper, gut wrenching as Solas handed her a mirror. She looked into it for only a split second before dropping it, screaming in horror, pushing herself against the wall. "What the fuck?! What's going on?! Someone make it stop! I...I have to be in the Fade, right? This is all just demons fucking with my head!"

"Sera, calm yourself," Solas ordered, "this is not permanent. There's a way to reverse this. The orb that did this to you is recharging."

Sera's breathing had gone into hyperventilation as she panicked. "Then bloody bring it here so I can get my body back before Madame Fancypants here ruins it!"

Vivienne scoffed. "Please, my dear, as if I'd harm you. I'm more worried about you damaging my body. It's a threat more real than whatever damage I could do to you in this body."

Dagna's chagrin was not hidden from Sera, who continued to breathe heavily. "Sera, listen, the orb needs about three days to recharge. You'll be turned back, but its magic is still..."

Sera gasped, grimacing even more. "I'm stuck as...as Miss Bitch-Face Extraordinaire for three days?!" she cried out, throat raw. Cassandra sighed.

"There's nothing you can do about it right now. You'll make it through this, just be patient."

Dawn nodded in agreement. "You're just going to have to find a way to work together through this. We'll inform the rest of the inner circle-"

"-but no one else other than them, my dear," Vivienne interrupted plaintively, looking disgusted, "I can't have any of my other contacts find out what state I'm in. This is humiliating enough as it is."

Sera glared at her. "How do you think I feel? If any of the Friends find out, I'll never hear the end of it. That I was a pompous bitch-ass noble for three whole days!"

Cassandra made a disgusted noise. "You two have to calm yourselves. If you want to keep it a secret, you have to work together and not become hysteric. It's three days. Both of you can do this."

Vivienne and Sera glared at each other for a few moments before they both stood up, resigned with their status. "I'm going to have to teach you to at least control your magic for the time being, Sera, dear." Vivienne said as relaxed as she could. Sera scowled.

"I don't want to learn piss about magic! I'm not a mage!"

"Right now, you are," the Inquisitor pointed out, "you don't have to learn any complex spells or rituals; just enough to control it carefully."

"But..."

"Do you want to be inconspicuous or not?" Cassandra barked. Sera grumbled but said nothing more on the matter. Vivienne took her by the hand.

"I'll take her to the basement by the vault. No one's down there, usually. After that, I think I should get myself some new garments." She gave another look of distaste to her clothes. "Plaidweave. Disgusting."

"Hey!" Sera protested, "My clothes are fine! Don't you dare put any pompous, fancy, floofy shite on my body!"

"Of course not, darling, that would draw far too much attention." The enchanter reassured. "But I think anything other than this...tattered red dress would be better. Perhaps a relatively simple blue dress, accented with yellow...no, gray...would be good on this complexion."

"Too fancy!" Sera cried as Vivienne practically dragged her out, both parties looking miserable. The ones left in Solas's room were silent for a few moments, until the Inquisitor finally let out a groan.

"This is going to be a long three days." she bemoaned.


End file.
